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All posts for the month March, 2009

Once again, we were given the opportunity to tag along in the latest landscape photography class of our esteemed mentor, Richard Larrios. It’s always a pleasure, and BS aside, a true honor to be allowed to tag along whenever he gives workshops. This time, we had a chance to return to Caliraya, where we got rained out the first time around.

We got to return to that lighthouse thingy, or whatever you call it, which we were frustrated not to shoot because of strong rains. We got to return as well to the Japanese garden, where we first tried out infrared photography, and we visited a resthouse owned by the gracious Mr. Peter Wallace.

I decided to try black and white because this is one aspect that I never really explore in photography, so I wanted to see how my IR photos would look in B & W. I like the drama minus the orange/red cast that I usually get from my camera.

I guess I wanted that eerie feel and quiet grace that I associate with infrared photography but without the distraction that color sometimes brings. Plus, I don’t know if it’s just me, but IR photos seem to me like they’re bereft of any sound. I don’t know why.

It was an exhausting weekend, with us running around like headless chickens, waking up at 4am to catch the sunrise, and working overtime on our first official photo trip for 2009 and our first since the exhibit. It was nice to be behind the camera again, as if we were recharged!

So we’re back to shooting, and we plan to really take advantage of the summer, rainless months. I just realized I’ve been taking pictures for a year now! I took my basic photography lessons around March of 2008! Wow, I can’t believe it’s been a year. As a photo group, this is also our first summer together; we’ve gotten used to shooting under constant threat of rain. I’m so excited for summer 2009!

The difference between a sexy movie and porn, is that a sexy movie is a hypocrite. It’s basically selling the same thing, but doesn’t want the moral baggage. I’m talking about sexy movies that are just all about sex. Don’t include real movies that just happen to be sexy as well. It’s like a floozy who wants to be accepted into mainstream society. It chooses the gray area; it’s the cinematic equivalent of a fence sitter. Or a tease. This is the kind of Top Ten post where most of these never made it on air. 🙂

I’ve seen many shocking things on the internet, but this one is a hard one for me to recover from. Unbelievable.

I guess it pinched my sense of injustice a little too much. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big believer in rules and the law. Even when I don’t agree with the law, I support the process of everyone agreeing to follow what the majority has decided on. For instance, even if you didn’t vote for the presidential candidate who won, you still have to abide and recognize him once the majority has spoken. Otherwise, if we all went by our own rules, anarchy ensues. So ask anyone who knows me, and they’ll agree that I’m a stickler for rules. So I agree with the policeman when he flagged down the car which rolled through a red light. But once he turned INTO the hospital parking lot, AND explained the predicament, was it too much too ask to at least verify first if the driver was telling the truth? And if need be, give him the ticket AFTER he says goodbye to his dying mother-in-law! I’m not saying suspend the enforcement of traffic rules to every joe who claims to be rushing to an emergency, but when it is verifiable, already being in the HOSPITAL PARKING LOT, I think a little humanity dictates the lowering of hubris and applying a little bit of compassion. True, it is a judgment call, and different people will have different views on the matter, but I personally, am appalled by this display of lack of kindness. He could have followed them to the room just to check if they were telling the truth. Sorry, it just touched a nerve. Hours after, I was still bristling at the thought. Sometimes we need to understand the spirit of the law, and not just the letter of the law. Call me naive, but I believe that law enforcement and human compassion CAN co-exist.

John Stephens couldn’t have chosen a better stage name than LEGEND. The guy can sing. Probably the most vocally gifted singer I’ve seen perform live. I swear, every note, almost mechanically in tune, never off key, never “pitchy”, always amazing. Even when he’s singing I’m not familiar with, I’m at awe at just how great a singer and performer he is. Incredible.

With no front act, the show just started right away. When the lights went out at the start of the show, the band started playing, the back-up singers started singing, as we awaited his entrance. Then, the coliseum started shrieking loudly and then we realized he was walking to the stage from the audience! He started singing once he got on stage and didn’t stop from then on. He performed mostly songs from his latest album, his third studio album, Evolver. But he didn’t disappoint by going through all his hits (I hate it when foreign acts skip singing some of their hit songs, knowing that fans went there to hear them). John sang his hits, but for me, favorite was when he sang “Save Room”, “P.D.A.”, and especially “Green Light”. Of course there’s “Ordinary People”, but more on that later. As a Beatles fan, it was delightful treat when he segued from one of his songs to the Beatles classic, “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)”. Way cool.

He is one of those musicians who can actually outsing his recordings when he performs them live. I find myself jaw-dropped with how he sings his songs live; I swear the man is gifted. You just had to be there to know what I’m talking about. The contestants on American Idol can learn a thing or two from John Legend. One of the highlights was when he asked for ONE girl to join him up onstage. He chose one, pointed at her from onstage, and she was escorted up on stage as he serenaded her and did some dirty dancing as well. The audience was screaming with titillated delight! Eventually the song ended, and he gave her a kiss on the cheek then a rose. I swear, this guy can sweep any girl out of her undies with a line or two from his songs!

John Legend also has a wardrobe shtick. He starts the show off with layers of clothing on, wrapped in shirts and a scarf and a jacket. But every so often, every after couple of songs, he would remove an article of clothing, first his jacket, then his scarf then his shirt, until his last song where he’s left wearing a sando or a wifebeater. He really knows how to work the crowd, playing to the easily excited audience.

Then, after his final song, he thanks everyone and abruptly exits the stage without singing his signature song, “Ordinary People”, leaving the crowd chanting MORE, MORE, MORE! After a bit, he comes back the complete opposite of his stripped down final outfit, completely dressed in a black tuxedo. He sits down on his piano, and proceeds to sing his biggest hit. At many parts of the ballad, he lets the crowd, who was singing along from the beginning, to sing the song for him, always a thrill to witness in concerts. He makes the crowd sing, “take it slow…this time we’ll take it slow…” over and over again to great dramatic effect. I swear, I didn’t think it was possible for me to like the song any more than I already do, but it was. I had a lump in my throat the whole time.

I’ve always admired John Legend and his music, but I never considered myself a fan. But I’ve acquired a newfound respect and admiration for the man and his immense talent — for writing, singing, and performing. It’s one of life’s simple joys to witness great talent performing live onstage. Consider me a fan.

In this golden age of mass media and internet and blogs and twitter and stuff, it’s sooo easy to start a fight. Just visit ANY thread in any forum or any comments section of a blog, and you’ll see just how easy it is to inflame emotions in this age of everyone-having-an-opinion-and-wanting-to-say-them-out-loud. So this barely scratches the surface.

September 9, 2008 → The Top Ten Statements That Will Start A Fight – V55

This is just too funny. Four Ukrainians decide to remake a Katy Perry Classic:

And you have to try this! One of the beds we use on The Morning Rush is a remix of the Daft Punk classic, “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger”. It’s a really cool song. In case you’re not familiar with the song, here’s the video that made this a youtube classic, “Daft Hands”.

Anyway, that’s not the main point of this post. There’s a new website that allows you to make your own remix of this song. It’s called iDAFT. And it’s sooo much fun! Hours of remixing for frustrated DJ’s like me. You gotta try it! Then tell me what you think, okay? 😉 Click on this link: iDAFT

I made the pictures small and I cropped it a certain way because it’s pretty gruesome. Her mouth was practically ripped off her face. So now, I have 8 koi left:

This whole sexual carnage happens every year. Some years I’m lucky and the fish survive the ordeal. But some years, like this one, have casualties. I did a post on this about a year ago called “Koi Rape”. Every year, around this time of year, the koi mating season comes in full swing. Unfortunately for koi enthusiasts, this type of fish mate in a violent kind of way. The poor females are violently attacked by the males, chased brutally around the pond, as the females bump into the concrete walls causing injuries, some fatal.

So this year, one female was already floating on her side when we found her. I could see that even in that weakened state, the males would still badger her, causing her to swim away at full speed, smashing her snout into the walls of the pond. When we fished her out of the pond, her mouth was almost completely gone, practically ripped out of her head. I tried putting salt in the water, in a last ditch attempt to revive her, which is the general treatment for sick fish, but it died anyway. So now, since only one female was raped, there’s a possibility now that I have an all-male pond (unless the other females just haven’t spawned yet). That is my goal: to have an all-male or all-female koi pond, to avoid this yearly display of piscine domestic violence.

Such regal, graceful, beautiful creatures, yet capable of such brutal violence, such is the nature of many things. I don’t have the budget to buy a new fish, but I need to look into it. Supposedly, the lucky number in a koi pond is any multiple of 9 (9, 18, 27…). So 8 ain’t great, but 9 is divine. This is my second batch of koi already, the first one wiped out years ago in a traumatic mass death. I really hope this batch doesn’t surprise me with another koi tragedy.